"You have tzatziki sauce on your chin." Jake smiled at Manny and indicated the location on his own face.
She grinned and wiped her mouth with a handful of the Greek diner's flimsy napkins. Jake never stopped marveling at how totally unflappable Manny was. If he had told his ex-wife, Marianna, that, she would have leaped up from the table in a huff and spent twenty minutes in the ladies' room repairing the damage. Not that Marianna would ever have agreed to eat at Souvlaki King. But if she had found herself in such a place, she would never have ordered the gyro special. His ex-wife did not eat messy food-no ribs, no lobster in the shell, no corn on the cob, ever. No wonder his work had repulsed her.
Manny leaned back in the booth. "Wow, that hit the spot. Just what I needed before a long drive to Brooklyn."
Jake's benevolent mood dissolved. "Brooklyn? We can't go out there right now. I have to get back to the office."
"What's this 'we,' Kemo Sabe? I don't recall asking you to go."
Jake glared at her. "You can't go out to some strange apartment in Brooklyn alone. There's no telling what you'll find there, or whom Travis is with."
"I'll be fine." Manny stood and straightened the demure skirt she'd chosen for her animal activist charade. "Look how I'm dressed-drab as a dormouse. No one will take the slightest interest in me."
Jake slid out of the booth to block her exit, causing the worried waiter to rush over with the check. "Manny, please. This is needlessly risky. Just wait until five-thirty and we'll go out there together."
Manny dodged around him. "I don't need a chaperone. Every minute that Travis is away from his apartment, he digs himself deeper in the hole with the feds. I've got to talk to him and figure out what's going on, then bring him back on my terms, not the government's."
"Don't be reckless!" Jake grabbed her shoulder, but she pulled away and strode down the center aisle of the diner. Jake followed. Groundhog Day-shades of Il Postino.
"You pay! You pay bill now!" the waiter shouted.
"Give the man his money, Jake," Manny instructed as she reached the door of the restaurant.
"At least call Sam to go with you," Jake shouted after her as he fumbled with his wallet.
"Okay, sure. Bye-thanks for lunch!"
And she was gone.
Jake stood at the cash register and watched her red hair disappear into the crowd. He knew damn well she wouldn't call Sam. Should he follow her to Brooklyn? By the time she got her car and drove through midday traffic, he could make it out to Rosamond Street on the subway. He thought of the pile of work on his desk, the hours this morning that he'd been missing in action. Pederson was probably already foaming at the mouth.
Well, screw Pederson. He wasn't going to let Manny get killed just to avoid a confrontation with his boss. Now, what was the address and apartment number Paco had given her? Jake closed his eyes and tried to relax his mind so it would come to him.
"Hey." The waiter poked him. "Here's your change. Whaddaya, some kinda horse? You sleep standing up?"
Jake scowled. No one could accuse this guy of groveling for tips. If the address had been about to come to him, it was lost now. He suspected Rosamond Street was one of those short blocks in Carroll Gardens, but he'd have to check a map to be sure. He figured maybe he should just hang out on the street and wait for Manny's high-profile black convertible to arrive.
Damn it-he didn't need this aggravation. Manny was a complication in his life, a complication that took him away from concentrating 100 percent on his work.
His cell phone rang. The knot of tension within him unwound. He assumed it must be Manny, telling him she'd changed her mind and that she'd wait until five-thirty and go to Brooklyn with him.
"Hello."
"Rosen, get over to 233 1/2 West 164th Street." Pederson's snarl came through the airwaves. "There's another body waiting for you. Your Vampire has struck again."
Jake stepped out onto the sidewalk, looking in the direction Manny had charged off. Then he turned and walked the other way. Whatever awaited Manny on Rosamond Street, she'd have to face it alone. • • • Jake arrived on an upper Harlem street packed with police vehicles to find a gray-faced Pasquarelli pacing outside the door to a boarded-up storefront church. TABERNACLE OF LIVING PRAISE was painted on the filthy window, just barely visible behind a rusty metal grate permanently fused in the closed position. The gentrification that had swept through the brownstone blocks of central Harlem hadn't reached this grim little enclave of tenements, liquor stores, and check-cashing shops. The neighbors sat on their front stoops and leaned out their windows, watching the unfolding drama with about as much interest as they would give to a repeat of Beverly Hills, 90210.
"I'll take you to the body," Pasquarelli told Jake. "I got a feeling I know what you're going to say. I'm hoping to hell I'm wrong."
Jake followed him into a dim hallway. A large rat sat on the stairs leading to the second floor, utterly unperturbed by all the commotion, attentive to the prospect of food that this incursion of humans might bring. As the men passed, the rat emitted a noise that sounded for all the world like a sarcastic snicker.
Pasquarelli flinched. "Fuckin' rats-the place is crawling with them. They say for every one you see, there're three more hiding." Jake, whose nose was as sensitive to anything involving death as a bloodhound's was to the living, didn't have to be told that. He could smell their presence-their droppings, their dander, their decomposing bodies-all around him. The scent of rodents was mixed with something much worse: human excrement, human decay, human fear.
The hall led straight from front to back, passing two rooms. The front main room was filled with a clutter of old chairs and a small lectern, illuminated slightly by the dusty sunlight that penetrated the window and grate. Although a few crime-scene techs worked that space, the real beehive of activity was in the small, windowless rear room.
The building's power had been shut off long ago, and an orange electrical cable snaked out to a police generator on the street. Brilliant work lights showed up every detail of the room in harsh relief.
A man's naked body was spread-eagled on a wide, old wooden door that had been set up across two sturdy sawhorses, apparently lifted from a construction site. The man had been tightly secured to the door with rope tied to large metal rings screwed directly into the wood. Each hand and foot was tied to a ring, and the rope crossed his torso in two places, tied with no slack on both sides.
Jake turned to Pasquarelli. "What makes you think this is the work of the Vampire? All the other victims were attacked in their homes."
The detective pointed.
Inside the crook of the victim's left arm was a Band-Aid with a cotton ball beneath it, the kind of remedy a nurse applies after drawing blood. Printed neatly in black ink on the Band-Aid were the words Look here. Jake did as directed and saw the single puncture mark of a blood draw.
A man's tasteful plaid suit was draped neatly on a hanger; a shirt and underwear were folded on a chair, with a pair of vintage Weejun penny loafers lined up underneath. The victim's clothes-this was no homeless derelict. Still, Jake was not entirely convinced.
"Could be a copycat."
Pasquarelli gestured uncomfortably toward the midsection of the body. "You're the expert, Doc, but aren't those burn marks like on Ms. Hogaarth? And that detail wasn't released to the public."
Jake pulled out his magnifying glass. "Can't be positive until the autopsy, but I think you're right. You've ID'd him?" he asked Pasquarelli.
"He's a Dr. Raymond Fortes. Works for a small pharmaceutical firm. They reported him missing on Wednesday."
Jake shook his head. "He's been here quite a bit longer than that." He began to examine the body and spoke aloud as he worked. "Numerous small flesh wounds and bruises. The bruises have various coloration-these yellowish ones are older, the purplish ones are more recent. Rat bites-inflicted over a period of days."
"What's that muddy-looking brown stuff in his chest hair and on his leg there?" Pasquarelli ask
ed.
Jake touched it and raised his gloved hand to his nose. Just as he suspected. "Peanut butter."
"Wha-" Understanding crept into Pasquarelli's mournful brown eyes. "Ah, Jesus. They spread peanut butter on him to attract the rats."
"Have you contacted the next of kin?" Jake asked. "This won't be an easy thing to tell them."
"The vic was a widower, not many friends. When he didn't show at the office on Monday, they didn't think much of it. Sometimes he worked from home and didn't like to be disturbed. Guess Dr. Fortes wasn't their most popular employee. But by Wednesday, they started calling him, and when they couldn't turn him up, they filed a missing person report."
"And the police tracked him to here?"
"Hell no. A middle-aged man with no family to make a fuss goes missing, we don't bother much. We checked to see if he was at the morgue. A couple uniforms went over to his apartment. No signs of trouble there, so they figured he decided to walk out on his life in New York. Happens all the time."
"So who found him?"
"City rodent-control officer. People from the building next door been complaining that the rats are invading them from over here. Baby got bit, so the rat guy comes over here to see about spreading the poison and sealing up the holes." Pasquarelli shoved his fists into the already-misshapen pockets of his brown sports coat. "He's got a truly sucky job, and today it got even worse."
Jake nodded as he continued to study the body. In places, the loss of flesh was quite extensive. Some of the older wounds were inflamed and covered in pus. Pasquarelli grew restless at Jake's silent examination. "How long ago did he die?" the detective asked.
"I'd say his heart stopped about two days ago. But he started the process of dying many days before that."
"What finally killed him?"
"I can't tell until I open him up. Probably a combination of things-shock, dehydration, blood loss, infection. He wasn't a young man-probably in his early sixties."
"Days of suffering," Pasquarelli said. "How could one human being do that to another? I've seen homicide, suicide, fratricide, patricide, and every other kind of cide, but I've never seen anything like this before. It's starting to feel like this Vampire really is some supernaturally evil creature."
Jake shook his head. "Don't let your imagination run away with you, Vito. When we catch this guy, he'll be as average as you or me. Not an obvious monster, but a person with a regular life, like the Nazi death camp guards or the soldiers at Abu Ghraib."
Pasquarelli was not persuaded. "But those guys justified what they did by saying they were just following orders in a time of war. That's not what's happening here."
"Maybe he's fighting his own private war, Vito. Our job is to figure out what it is."
Trapped.
Manny took a deep breath to steady her pounding heart. For at least the tenth time since she'd gotten into this mess, she looked for a way out.
Hopeless. A Moishe the Bagel Man truck in front of her, black livery cab beside her, overbearing SUV right on her tail. And beneath her, the waters of New York Harbor. She hated to admit that Jake had been right, but the subway to Rosamond Street would've been much faster. Bumper-to-bumper traffic on the Brooklyn Bridge at midday should not have come as a surprise.
Still, driving her Porsche hadn't been a totally stupid idea. Once she found Travis, she wanted the option of getting him out of that apartment fast. Standing on the subway platform waiting for the B train didn't really fit her plan for a quick escape.
Manny squirmed in the driver's seat without taking her feet off the clutch or the brake pedals. What awaited her on Rosamond Street? Would Travis be alone in the apartment? Would he listen to reason, come with her willingly? What would she do if he refused, or if whoever lived in the apartment refused for him? The possibilities for trouble seemed a lot more numerous stuck here in traffic than they had in the diner with Jake.
The driver of the livery cab, distracted by talking on his cell phone headset, allowed a small gap to open up in front of him. Manny jerked the wheel and accelerated, shoehorning her way into the space and inching past the bagel delivery truck. The maneuver gave her a sense of accomplishment until she saw the broader vista of jammed traffic ahead of her. Out of one tight spot and into another-an uncomfortable metaphor for her behavior today. She didn't think of herself as reckless. As a lawyer, she was trained to be logical. But somehow, Jake, with his methodical and painstaking approach to every problem, made her seem impulsive.
A sudden cavalcade of horn blowing interrupted her reverie. Manny leaned on her horn, too. What the hell-it didn't change the pileup of cars, but it felt good.
When the horns subsided, a chirping sound remained. Manny cocked her ear, then pawed through her purse for her Black-Berry. It was chirping to remind her of an appointment. She didn't remember scheduling anything for today-certainly no court dates. Her hand closed around the gadget and she scrolled to the calendar function. "Mycroft to vet 3:00" flashed before her eyes.
Oh shit! Because Kenneth was filing papers in court, she was supposed to take Mycroft in to Dr. Costello for a follow-up to make sure the bite he'd received from Kimo was healing properly. Even if she turned around-even if she could turn around-she'd never make it to collect the dog and get to Dr. Costello's office by three o'clock. Better just to call and reschedule.
Manny expected to get the receptionist, but the voice coming over the line was male and familiar. "Dr. Costello? It's Manny Manfreda."
"Ah, hello, Ms. Manfreda. How are you? And how is Mycroft?"
"At the moment, I'm not so good. I'm stuck in traffic on the Brooklyn Bridge, pointed away from your office, so I'm afraid I have to reschedule Mycroft's appointment. I'm sorry it's at the last minute, but could we come in tomorrow?"
"I don't have the appointment book-it's on my wife's computer. Let me go and check."
Manny could hear rustling and shuffling over the line, but Dr. Costello kept talking as he worked. "I see we have a celebrity in our midst. TV news in the taxi on the way in kept repeating you were representing some kids in that case out of New Jersey. It sounds like it is an interesting matter."
"Well, the government's case is shaky." Manny figured she might as well practice projecting the cocky air of confidence all prominent defense attorneys had mastered, even if she was just talking to her dog's vet.
"Good. It's up to lawyers like you to keep the government from overstepping its boundaries."
Manny smiled. Not only was her new vet very attentive to Mycroft but he also shared her own libertarian views. It wasn't essential to be in political harmony with your pet's doctor, but it was a nice bonus. "It's refreshing to hear you say so, Dr. Costello. I think there are a lot of people who think the Preppy Terrorists deserve to be locked up."
The doctor made heavy breathing sounds, which came over the line along with the pinging of a computer program being launched. "Ah, finally I come to tomorrow's schedule. It seems we can fit you in at two or at three-thirty."
"I'll take three-thirty."
Dr. Costello sighed. "It doesn't seem fair."
"Oh, really, I appreciate your squeezing me in. Three-thirty is just fine."
Dr. Costello laughed. "Can I have your autograph tomorrow?"
Manny accelerated and drew two car lengths closer to the end of the bridge. She repeated now what her professors had pounded into her in her fist year of law school. "Justice is never perfect. As long as I'm allowed to be heard, the system is working."
"I hope you're right."
For no discernible reason, the cars ahead of Manny began to move. She pulled onto the BQE, thrilled with the sensation of traveling at fifty miles per hour. She now understood why in California they called a high-speed chase anything approaching double digits. "I know I am."
Manny pulled up beside the last parking spot on Rosamond Street. A man walking by shook his head, doubtful she could squeeze the Porsche into such a tight space. But with a few deft pulls of the steering wheel, Manny had h
er car snugly aligned with the curb. Success in parallel parking, as so much in life and the law, all hinged on your approach.
She relaxed as she sized up her surroundings. Rosamond Street was a nice middle-class block, lined with nondescript low-rise redbrick apartment buildings. Not fancy, not funky, not scary-the kind of place where schoolteachers and firefighters and mail carriers raised families, avoiding the drama of the highest and lowest ends of New York society.
She found number 329 and stood on the stoop for a moment, considering her approach. If she buzzed apartment 4E and announced herself, would Travis let her in? Her problem solved itself when a man exited the building and obligingly held the door open for her.
Trusting soul, Manny thought. Guess I don't look too threatening. Inside the building's small lobby, Manny hesitated: ancient claustrophobic elevator or dark, steep stairs? Figuring she wouldn't come across as masterful if she arrived at Travis's hideout gasping for breath, Manny reluctantly stepped into the tiny elevator.
Several lurching, grinding minutes later, she stepped out on the fourth floor. As she looked down the L-shaped hall to get her bearings, a slim figure in a baseball cap and denim jacket appeared from around the corner and slipped quickly down the stairs.
"Travis!" Manny shouted, and raced toward the stairs. She got to the railing and peered down at the person on the landing one floor below. She saw a ponytail protruding from under the baseball cap and heaved a sigh of relief. Not Travis after all.
Continuing down the hall, Manny saw the third door on the left was ajar: 4E. The gyro special gave an unhappy lurch in her stomach. New Yorkers, even ones who lived in safe middle-class neighborhoods, did not leave their apartment doors hanging open.
Manny hugged the left wall of the hallway and cautiously approached the door. It was dark inside, too dark to tell if someone was standing there watching her. When Manny got within a foot of the door, she reached out, quickly shoved the door open, and flattened herself back against the wall.
Skeleton justice mm-2 Page 11
